


The Cupboard Was Bare

by SophieHatter



Series: Sophie’s Shorts [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Challenge Response, Cooking, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-18 16:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16122299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieHatter/pseuds/SophieHatter
Summary: Prompt:Pasta sauce and bananas





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [AgentKalGibbs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentKalGibbs/pseuds/AgentKalGibbs) in the [CookOutNBakeOff](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/CookOutNBakeOff) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Pasta sauce and bananas

“You can’t be serious,” Jack turned from peering in the fridge to looking at Sam over his shoulder.

She shrugged and then winced as she jostled her right shoulder, still aching from yesterday’s impact with the embarkation ramp.

“How can you have pasta sauce, but no pasta? In fact, how can you have no actual food in your house except for pasta sauce and _frozen bananas_?”

“Well, it’s just that everything goes off if we get stuck off-world or in lock down at the base and so I just ... stopped ... eating at home.” Her forehead wrinkled and she went to shrug again, remembering not to at the last moment. Readjusting the arm sling, she lowered her eyes, trying to look distracted rather than embarrassed.

The Colonel picked up his keys off the counter. “Right, well. I’m going out to the store. Don’t go anywhere,” he paused for a moment, remembering that Sam’s dislocated shoulder and broken wrist meant that she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. “Well. Yes. Do you need anything from the store?”

“No, Sir,” she answered meekly, feeling like a teenager getting a parental dressing down.

“I’ll be about an hour,” he told Sam, walking out. When the front door clicked shut, she sighed.

He felt guilty for the accident that had knocked the Stargate over. And for their need to go jumping into it while it was horizontal because there was a surprise attack from a squad of Jaffa. Even if those sorts of events happened often in their off-world explorations, the Colonel always felt guilty when one of them was hurt.

The guilt was why he was here, in her kitchen, harassing Sam about her lack of groceries. The landing on the ramp had left her with a dislocated shoulder, fractured wrist and three badly bruised ribs. When they’d discharged her this morning, Colonel O’Neill had been waiting to drive her home and, once here, had decided to take over caring for her for the rest of the day.

Obviously she couldn’t cook, but instead of ordering take out, like she would normally do if she ate at home, he’d wanted to prepare something. And that had led to the discovery that, aside from beer, a few bottles of wine and some ice packs in her freezer, all she had in the house that could be described as food was pasta sauce and frozen bananas.

She appreciated his help, really, but all that she wanted to do right now was sleep. It was the only way to escape the aches and pains that were present on her right side, from the goose egg on her head to the barked skin and purpling bruise on her shin. Sam looked at the clock. It was half an hour too early to take her pain meds, but if she fell asleep without taking them she’d regret it.

Shaking two pills from the bottle, she downed them with water from the tap. The couch was calling for her. Actually, her bed was, but she didn’t fancy having the Colonel step over that magical line, so the couch would do until he got back.

 

* * *

 

The door was unlocked when he returned, which was fortunate, because Jack didn’t have a spare hand to dig out his keys. Leaving it standing open, he carried the first lot of grocery bags to the kitchen and was returning to his truck when he noticed Sam asleep on the couch in the living room.

Making an effort to move quietly, Jack retrieved the remaining grocery bags, pushed the front door quietly shut with his elbow and left the bags in the kitchen. He toed his shoes off and crossed the carpet to where Sam lay on the couch.

There was a cushion under Sam’s injured arm and she appeared uncomfortable even in sleep. With her right hip pulled up at an odd angle, her skirt had ridden up to her knees and he could see the darkening bruises on her knee and shin, except for where the dressings covered the places where the skin had been scraped off.

Jack let his eyes drift back up to Sam’s face, noting the crease in her brow and the corner of her mouth turned down in the beginnings of a grimace. There was a blanket over the back of the couch and Jack snagged it, careful not to wake her, and spread it out over his 2IC. The coffee table behind him looked sturdy enough and it held when he gingerly lowered himself on to it.

It tore Jack up to see any of his team hurt and it was usually he or Daniel that took the hardest hits. Himself, because he would rather put his body in the way of trouble over any of the team. Daniel was, well, better now, but in the beginning the guy had no field skills at all and it was all the rest of them could do to keep him alive on missions.

Carter, although she took hits, usually walked out of med bay after a mission. That Doc had kept her in overnight was a sign of just how hard and fast she had exited the wormhole. Carter had speculated that the gate may have taken a few heavy hits as they were in transit, causing them to come out faster than usual. Either way, jumping into it had meant that they had exited the gate horizontally and in the air.

There was work to do in the kitchen. A meal was waiting to be made and groceries needed to be put away. Reaching over, Jack meant to just take her temperature, to check if she were too cold or too hot, but his concern for her welled up and he stroked her cheek with his knuckles and lingered in the contact, instead of just checking the warmth of her skin.

Sam turned into his touch and the grimace in the corner of her mouth softened. He would do anything to see her pain eased, and so he stroked her cheek again and then brushed his fingertips over her furrowed brow. Where his fingers went they eased her and, in return, that eased him.

Unlike in the infirmary, there was no one here to see him kiss his fingertips and brush them over her lips. An apology, a declaration, a promise. To her, to himself.

Always.


	2. Chapter 2

Her stomach woke her, called by the sweet and savoury smells pouring out of the kitchen. For a moment, Sam wasn’t sure where she was. She knew for certain that her house never smelled like this. But this was definitely her house.

Wriggling and rolling, Sam was able to get herself sitting up without using her injured arm. Cataloguing her aches brought back who must be in her kitchen - the Colonel. As she was contemplating getting up, the man in question caught sight of her from where he was working at her kitchen counter.

“Carter! Just in time, dinner is nearly ready. Can you make it to the table?”

Her head was still fuzzy, whether from the pain or the meds she took to ease it, it was hard to tell. “Yes. I think I ... dinner?”

“You’ve been asleep for six hours. Probably should take your painkillers again, soon.” Jack pushed them to the end of the counter and then turned to the fridge. “No alcohol for you, so I got grape juice, milk and Diet Coke. What do you want?”

Hauling herself to her feet, Sam shuffled toward the kitchen table. “Juice, please. And maybe some water for the pills.”

“Why certainly, ma’am,” Jack replied, grabbing two glasses and filling each, snagging her pills on his way. “Bottoms up,” he told her, rubbing his hands together as he glided away.

Dinner was her pasta sauce, except that Jack had turned it into something magnificent with roasted vegetables, garlic and mushrooms. It was more like a casserole than a sauce, served over pasta spirals that she discovered were easy to eat one handed with a fork. She was grateful to Jack for making something that didn’t need someone to cut it up or feed it to her.

Despite the long nap, Sam found she was still tired. Smothering a yawn as she leaned back in her chair, Jack cocked his head and propped his chin on his hand. “There’s dessert, but you could just go to bed.”

“Dessert?” She wondered. “Is that what I smell?”

Jack grinned. “Think you can stay awake long enough for Banoffee Pie?”

“I am always willing for pie. Even if I don’t know what it is.”

Reaching across the table, Jack took her bowl and turned towards the kitchen. “It’s banana and toffee pie.”

“Ok, now you’re just showing off,” Sam said to his back. “If I didn’t know any better, Sir, I’d say you’re enjoying yourself.”

Jack flashed her a grin. “Well, you wouldn’t let me do this under normal circumstances and cooking for just me is tedious. Tonight, I have an audience.”

“I may be open to negotiations on the care and feeding of Air Force Majors,” Sam told him.

“Aha! My cunning plan has worked. You cannot resist my cooking.” Jack took ice cream out of the freezer and began slicing into a thin pie.

“That’s not all I can’t resist,” Sam shot back and then froze, mouth agape. Jack’s back was to her, but she saw him freeze, too. “Sir, I ...” She stuttered.

He didn’t say anything, just resumed slicing the pie and sliding the pieces on to two plates. Then he scooped the ice cream and placed it back in the freezer. When Jack carried the plates to the table, he didn’t retake the seat across from her, instead he sat beside her at the corner.

With his fork, Jack indicated that she should eat and he’d had a whole bite of pie and ice-cream before he spoke. “Like it?”

“Sir, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things awkward.” Sam poked at her ice cream and decided the pie was too good to waste, so worked on another bite.

“You could blame the painkillers,” he noted.

“I, uh, this is wonderful.” The slip was making her see just what he felt about her, making her see what he had done today. And why.

“Or the pain,” he added.

“I would never have thought of banana and toffee together,” Sam was shying away from anything that might reference what she was thinking. That she was thinking that one’s CO does not just make dinner and dessert from scratch and restock your refrigerator and pantry for you.

“Or you could just,” Jack looked at her, pie paused midway to his mouth.

“What?” Her pulse was racing, but she couldn’t look away from him, from his eyes, his partially open mouth.

Jack licked his lips, his eyes similarly locked on Sam’s. “Admit that was the truth.”

“We can’t,” Sam told him, without conviction.

Jack nodded, agreeing with her and returned to looking at his plate. Their conversation was stilted from that point. When they were done, he cleaned the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher. Sam walked him to the door.

“Thank you,” she told him, trying to say everything with those two words.

Jack reached for her, his fingertips brushing over the bruises on her face. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That I can’t take better care of you.” The regret was clear in his eyes.

Sam looked back over her shoulder towards the kitchen and then returned her eyes to Jack. “We do what we can.” Reaching for his hand with her own, Sam turned her face and kissed his palm.

As she turned back, Jack let his fingers tangle in her hair and leaned in, feeling the warmth of her body, brushing his lips to hers.

“Stay,” she asked, surprising herself.

Jack’s head jerked back as he heard her.

“There is no way anything is going to happen, not with three broken ribs, a broken wrist, a concussion and about a hundred scrapes and bruises. So we’re not really messing with any regs.” Sam smiled at him, hopefully. “I need someone to take care of me.”

“Carter,” Jack murmured, his head reeling. She’d never needed anyone to take care of her since she was out of diapers.

“Sir,” her heart was threatening to beat out of her chest. “Jack, I need you.”


End file.
